Workshop on Australian Pecuniary Penalties for Competition Law Infringements

26 March 2018 Sydney, Australia

The OECD organised a workshop in Sydney on 26 March 2018 to present the results of an OECD review of the Australian Pecuniary Penalties for Competition Law Infringements.

Background

Australia’s system for imposing sanctions for breaches of competition law is capable of delivering substantial and deterrent sanctions for such breaches. In recent years, important cases have increasingly been brought before the courts for decisions about sanctions. Building on prior OECD work comparing sanctions regimes for competition law regimes, Australia has asked the OECD to review its pecuniary sanctions regime and compare it with the practices of a number of representative OECD jurisdictions. The resulting report was presented during a workshop and discussed amongst Australian and international experts from a variety of backgrounds.

Programme

In addition to the presentation of the report on Australian Pecuniary Penalties for Competition Law Infringements, the programme included a number of panels where the views of invited academics, legal profession practicionners, judges and the business and consumers society from Australia and abroad were discussed.

Speakers

The workshop featured Australian and international experts and practitionners including:

Frédéric Jenny
Chairman of the OECD Competition Committee
Sir Marcus Smith QC
Justice of the High Court of England and Wales and the Competition Appeal Tribunal
Savvas Papasavvas
Judge of the General Court of the European Union
The Hon Ray Finkelstein AO QC
Former Justice of the Federal Court and former President of the Australian Competition Tribunal
Sarah McNaughton SC
Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions
Rod Sims
Chair, Australian Consumer and Competition Commission
Caron Beaton-Wells
Professor, University of Melbourne
John Connor
Emeritus Professor, Purdue University